


Grant Me at the Very Last, the Light

by notaverse



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hugs, Missing Scene, Spoilers for Episode: S01E09 Stand Tall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:54:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27152782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notaverse/pseuds/notaverse
Summary: Reggie-centric missing scene from 1x09, taking the boys from the stage to the garage, filling in that gap between them realising they weren't crossing over and Julie finding them at home.(Alternatively: Three nice young dead boys suffer a lot.)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 124





	Grant Me at the Very Last, the Light

**Author's Note:**

> Title appropriated from 'Dark Ending', from the 'Lovers, Lore & Loss' album.
> 
> As usual, many thanks to [threewalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls) for making me rework things and letting me introduce them to this delightful series! <3

Reggie never used to believe in magic. (He never used to believe in ghosts, either, and look at him now.) But here he is, playing the most important gig of his afterlife, up onstage at the Orpheum after being sucked out of the Hollywood Ghost Club by the power of music (or friendship? The power of music played by friends? He has no idea.) and if that's not magic, he doesn't know what is.

None of this should be possible. There's Alex, solid and steady on the drums, full of the confidence that only comes to the fore when he plays, his anxiety pinned down in a net woven from the beats. There's Luke, a storm of fire and lightning, brilliant and blazing with the music he was born to play, his guitar an extension of his body as much as his soul. There's Julie, mic in her hand and her heart in her eyes, shining bright like the star she is, the girl who gives life to ghosts.

And then there's Reggie, who still can't believe he's standing on this stage, making music with the people he loves most in the world, _and they can be seen._ Everyone in the venue's being carried higher and higher by their sound—and for a band made up largely of dead guys, they sound pretty good live, if he does say so himself.

He doesn't understand how the magic works.

He doesn't have to.

Whatever force (or Force? Reggie wouldn't mind being a Force Ghost. That'd be cool.) is at work here seems to be powered by their music. If that's the case, and if they cross over tonight, at least they're generating enough juice to go out in a blaze of glory. He hasn't felt an atmosphere this electric since that Garth Brooks concert his parents took him to in '93. Last thing they ever did as a family before the fights started in earnest. No matter what happens after this gig, there _has_ to be a better aftermath than that.

Probably. He hopes crossing over doesn't hurt. It can't be as bad as when they died the first time, right? Definitely has to be less messy. He wonders how it'll start, if they'll go back to that dark room or somewhere totally different—somewhere bright and welcoming, maybe with Julie's mom waiting to greet them so they can tell her how amazing her daughter is (though she must already know).

Projected pink fireworks and Flynn's carefully-planned stage lights shine down on them as they take their bows, and Reggie wishes he could take Julie's hand the way Luke's taken Alex's, that they could all link physically just for this one last performance. If this is it for them, he wants that memory, even if the thought of leaving is tearing him apart just as much as Caleb's weird jolts of power.

There's so much he still wants to do! And not even just band stuff. He wants to hang out in the kitchen with Ray and lend a hand with dinner by moving all the ingredients to the front of the cupboards just in time for Ray to reach for them. He wants to help Carlos make his ghost videos and become a YouTube sensation (now that he knows what YouTube is). He wants to try to track down his parents, even though he's sure his death hadn't made them fight any less and he knows he's probably not going to like what he finds.

But most of all he wants more nights like this.

The lights above them flicker and for a moment, Reggie imagines the electric lighting giving way to divine radiance. This is it. Time's up. Julie and the Phantoms have played their final gig. He begins to rise from his bow, an invisible hand tugging his incorporeal form into the great beyond, and poofs out for the last time...

...to find himself sitting outside on the marquee of the Orpheum. 

"Again?" Alex asks, and Reggie realises the invisible hand must've belonged to Luke.

"Yeah." Luke's between them, eyes downcast, all his energy left behind on the stage. "Sorry, guys. I couldn't feel anything happening, you know? And if we'd stayed, the audience wouldn't have seen us but Julie would've."

Which wouldn't normally be a bad thing, but Reggie understands what he's getting at. "And if Julie knows we're still around..."

Luke finishes his thought for him. "She'll know we didn't cross over and we'll be back where we were last night, except without even a plan to keep us going." His voice cracks, and Reggie can feel all their hearts cracking right along with it. "We can't do that to her again."

"I don't like it either," Alex says, "but now what?"

As if in answer to his question, another jolt chooses that moment to hit them. Reggie doubles up so violently he almost falls off the marquee, which wouldn't kill him but definitely wouldn't improve the situation. It's ridiculously unfair that he can feel like all his internal organs are failing when he doesn't even have internal organs anymore.

Wincing, he manages to straighten up enough to turn to the others. Luke looks like someone just smashed his guitar right in front of him and told him he could never make music again; Alex looks like he's considering throwing himself down to the street below in the hopes that a car will somehow run him over and put him out of his misery.

Reggie does his best to muster a smile for them, although he doubts it's believable. "Now I guess we try to do everything we ever wanted in one night and hope one of them turns out to be our unfinished business! You guys think any recording studios are still open this late? We never got to put out a full album, or record one of my country songs."

"If I only have one song left in me it's not going to be country," Alex says, though his protest lacks heat and Reggie knows that given time, he could talk Alex around eventually. But time is the one thing they thought they had, only to have it cruelly snatched away from them before they'd even really begun to make use of it.

"Yeah, that's third-album territory." Luke's smile is faint enough to be barely a shadow of its former self—like all three of them, now, in a manner of speaking. "I... I don't think there's going to be a third album, sorry. Or a first."

"So now what?" Alex tries again. "We just sit here getting zapped until we fade out, and Julie never has to know we didn't cross over? Because at some point she's going to walk out those doors, and when she looks up at this marquee—and she will—you don't think she's going to notice three sets of legs dangling over the edge?"

"We could—" Luke starts, but another jolt hits them and he breaks off, gasping.

"They're getting stronger." Reggie clutches at his chest, where it feels like someone's tried to claw their way through to his heart with the head of a hammer while simultaneously shocking him with electric paddles. "And lasting longer."

"We should go somewhere else while we still can." Alex struggles to right himself after slumping against Luke; Luke gives him a gentle push into place. "Anywhere Julie won't see us."

There's an entire city—hell, an entire world—full of out of the way places for three fading musician spirits to meet their end once more. Up at the Hollywood Sign. On top of the Eiffel Tower. Disneyland. Anywhere Julie won't have to watch them suffer as Caleb's power destroys them one jolt at a time.

So where do they go? That's easy. They go _home_.

Alex protests when Luke poofs them back into the garage. "This is the first place she's going to go when she gets back!"

"She'll be tired," Luke says. "Big night. She'll probably go to bed, text Flynn a dozen times and fall asleep holding her phone."

"But—"

"Where else are we gonna go?"

The garage is dim, and switching on the lights is not going to help with the fantasy that it's also empty, so Reggie can't see Luke's face, but he doesn't have to to know there are tears in his eyes. "Go haunt Bobby's mansion some more?" he tries, but another bolt of lightning sends him to his knees before he can finish his sentence and the last word comes out in a strangled gasp.

Luke's hand finds his shoulder from behind. "You okay, man?"

Reggie wheezes like all the air's just been squashed out of his non-existent lungs. "Hey, at this rate we won't have to worry about Julie finding us—we'll be long gone before she gets home."

There's just enough light coming in from outside for Reggie to track Alex's exhausted silhouette sinking down to the floor. "You can still make jokes about it, Reg?"

"What else am I supposed to do?" Luke's already crying and Alex sounds halfway there, so Reggie doesn't bother trying to hold back. This isn't the first time they've all cried on each other, though it's likely to be the last. "Pretend it's all going to be okay? Because it's not. I'm not ready to lose you guys all over again."

Luke and Alex have been his only real family for years now, a tight circle that's recently expanded to include Julie, and Reggie has a growing fondness for her family, too. Carlos is the little brother he'd have loved to have had, and Ray... Ray shows him every single day what a father could be. Reggie wishes he could thank him, could tell him how much he's made Reggie feel welcome in his family even though he's never even met him. He'd really appreciate a big, protective hug from Ray right now, to have someone tell him it's going to be okay, that they'll look after him and keep him safe.

No chance of that, though. All they've got is each other, for however long it takes for the end to come, and all Reggie can do is try to make them laugh, even just a little bit. It's as much a distraction from fear for him as it is for them.

"Hey." Luke's hand slides down his shoulder to catch him across the chest; Reggie finds himself being pulled backwards against Luke. It's a bad angle, with Reggie being tugged practically onto Luke's thighs, but he doubts either of them will be able to remain sitting upright much longer anyway. "You won't lose us. We're all going together."

"Yeah." Alex shuffles over to them, sideways on, and manages to get his arms loosely around both of them. "Just like last time. And if there's somehow another level of afterlife after this one, I guess we'll go there together too."

It's a pleasant fantasy, that perhaps another new start awaits them, but Willie had been pretty clear about their fate. No more ghostly existence. No more... anything. Reggie leans into the hug, torn between wanting more time for them all to be together and for it all to be over soon, to spare them further pain. Even dying from the street dogs had been better than this, because he hadn't known how it would end. He'd still had hope.

Another shock rattles them hard enough for his head to bash Luke's nose. It can't be much longer now. Reggie feels like he's being pulled apart piece by piece and there's almost nothing left. It's draining, and even with the others supporting him—or at least, they're all falling in complementary directions to prop each other up—he doesn't think he can keep upright.

"That was a bad one," Alex murmurs.

"Worst yet," Luke agrees. "I don't think I can..."

"Me neither." Reggie can't bring himself to say he gives up, even if it's true. "I just need to lie down awhile. I think your nose gave me a concussion."

Luke half-laughs, half-sobs against his neck and lets him go. Alex's arms fall away too, but they don't go far, and once the three of them are done collapsing in an exhausted heap Reggie finds himself nestled between the other two, hands held tight for dear afterlife. He thinks their skin should be burning up with fever but it's cold as a corpse, all the energy drained from it by the pain that racks their bodies even between the shocks, now.

Each jolt momentarily lights up the garage like world's faultiest and least-comforting lamp. Reggie tries to keep his eyes closed. If he can't see it happening, perhaps it'll hurt less. (It doesn't take him long to discover that it doesn't.) He has no idea how many hours have passed while they've lain like this, how many times they've been zapped, how much longer they can hold out before this torture finally comes to an end. They'll die once more in darkness and in pain, and Julie will never have to know.

Reggie hopes that whenever they go, they go at the exact same time. There are few feelings worse than holding the hands of the people you love as they pass on. They've been here before, in the ambulance, unwilling to let each other go as the world goes dark around them and everything they've ever been, ever done, ever loved, has faded into the night.

He can hear the ambulance pulling up now. No sirens, because what's the rush when your patients are already dead? The engine stops, and the footsteps begin. Singing paramedics, that's a new one on Reggie. He wishes they'd come for him the first time around. They pause to talk outside the garage for an eternity. Reggie waits for them to open the door, dizzy and aching and so utterly exhausted he can't stop himself from responding even as it dawns on him that that's no paramedic standing in the doorway, thanking them.

He shouldn't have said anything. They're not supposed to be here. She shouldn't have to watch them disappear from her life for good.

They knew that, and still they came home. 

If it's a choice between fading out on an anonymous street somewhere surrounded by strangers who don't even know they exist, and saying goodbye to the person who gave them a new lease on life, here in this studio where they've made so much beautiful music together, Reggie's picking Option B every time. He thinks the others would, too, or why would Luke have brought them back here?

He knows there's nothing any of them can do to keep Caleb's power from consuming them. Whatever magic it is that their music creates isn't strong enough to stop it, no matter how much he wants it to be. It can't be long now. Much more and they'll be gone for good, their souls flickering one final time and disappearing into the dark.

Despite that, after hearing Julie's voice, Reggie finds he's somehow still clinging to one last, barely-there shred of hope. They've been lost in the dark before, and he's not looking forward to the possibility of ending up there again.

But last time, they didn't know anyone who could call them back to the light.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know that's not how the boys are lying in the garage in the show. Just assume that at some point before Julie opened the door, they separated because they were fed up of knocking into each other every time they got zapped?


End file.
